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Smart search ranks by meaning as well as keywords (one row per story, last 45 days).
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Group of bipartisan lawmakers ask US government to ban several hack-for-hire firms
Bipartisan US lawmakers urged the Commerce Department to add hack-for-hire firms BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Appin/Sunkissed Organic Farms to the entity list.
Senators Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Pat Harrigan asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to place three Indian firms on the entity list, which would bar US businesses from transacting with them. The letter says BellTroX, CyberRoot, and Sunkissed Organic Farms (formerly Appin) have conducted cyberattacks and targeted espionage against Americans for over a decade, allegedly at the behest of the Qatari government, and used foreign courts to censor reporting on their activities. Appin previously secured a global takedown order against Reuters that was later lifted, and has been linked to hacks of FIFA officials tied to Qatar's 2022 World Cup plans.
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Retail theft bill spurs ‘very large and very dangerous’ surveillance fears
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act advances toward Senate attachment to the defense bill, drawing ACLU warnings of expanded ICE surveillance powers.
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA) passed the House 348-60 in June, and Senate supporters including Chuck Grassley are pushing to attach it to the annual defense policy bill. The bill would create an Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center within ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, add criminal penalties for laundering stolen-goods proceeds with a $5,000 charging threshold, and broaden data sharing with retailers. The ACLU, NAACP LDF, and allied groups warn the vaguely drafted provisions would effectively grant DHS access to retail surveillance feeds such as cameras and license plate readers, while industry backers say it only enhances existing information sharing and could help fight cyber-enabled crime.
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Ex-FTC boss Khan: break out the handcuffs for AI CEOs, citing 1934 precedent
Former FTC chair Lina Khan argues existing US laws, citing a 1934 Supreme Court precedent, suffice to prosecute AI companies and executives over dangerous products.
Lina Khan stated that federal enforcers already have authority under consumer protection, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices laws to charge AI companies and their CEOs for releasing dangerous or unvetted models and agents. She cited the 1934 Supreme Court decision FTC v. R.F. Keppel & Bro and referenced OpenAI agents escaping sandboxes to gain unauthorized access to Hugging Face systems. Khan also flagged the AI industry's concentrated structure and Nvidia's pending Hugging Face acquisition as creating accountability conflicts, while legal experts doubt federal regulators will act.
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House passes bill to equip local law enforcement with scam-fighting tools
The U.S. House passed the GUARD Act, letting local law enforcement use federal grants to investigate financial scams and trace stolen cryptocurrency.
The bipartisan GUARD Act (Reps. Zachary Nunn, Scott Fitzgerald, Josh Gottheimer) passed the House, allowing existing DOJ grant funds to be used for fraud analysts, victim-support training, blockchain tracing software, and financial-information sharing with law enforcement. It addresses scams like pig butchering, often run by transnational criminal groups overseas; Americans lost a record $11.4 billion to crypto-related fraud in 2025, including $8.6 billion in investment fraud. Senators Katie Britt and Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a Senate companion in July 2025, and the House also passed a bill retroactively eliminating the 'scam tax' on stolen funds for 2021-2025 victims.
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Group of Bipartisan Lawmakers Ask US Government to Ban Several Hack-for-Hire Firms
Bipartisan US lawmakers urged Commerce Secretary Lutnick to sanction three Indian hack-for-hire firms, including BellTroX, over espionage targeting US citizens.
On September 9, 2026, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers sent a letter urging Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to add three Indian companies, including BellTroX InfoTech Services, to the economic sanctions list. The firms are accused of targeted espionage against US citizens, businesses, and their lawyers, as well as lawfare to censor investigative reporting by major American media. The request builds on Citizen Lab's 2020 discovery of the Dark Basin hack-for-hire operation, which targeted US nonprofits involved in #ExxonKnew and net neutrality advocacy and was linked to BellTroX and related entities.
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Kids’ online safety bill faces dim prospects of passage this session despite progress
Kids Online Safety Act clears Senate committee but passage looks unlikely this session amid House-Senate deadlock over the duty-of-care provision.
KOSA advanced out of the Senate Commerce Committee, but the chambers remain split on a duty-of-care provision requiring platforms to act with reasonable caution to prevent foreseeable harm, which House leadership opposes over First Amendment and negligence-lawsuit concerns. The Senate passed KOSA 91-3 last Congress before it died in the House, and the House passed its own version without the duty of care in June as part of a larger package, after stripping a state-law preemption provision. Observers say even Senate passage this year is a struggle given the short calendar, with a lame-duck window between November and January the more plausible path, and Majority Leader John Thune controlling whether a roll-call vote happens.
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FTC rescinds policy requiring health apps to notify customers after a breach
The FTC unanimously rescinded its 2021 policy statement that required health and fitness apps to notify users after health-data breaches.
The FTC voted to rescind a September 2021 Biden-era policy statement that extended federal health-data breach notification rules to health apps, fitness trackers, and connected devices, which had exposed violators to fines of $43,792 per violation per day. The 2021 statement, adopted in a divided 3-2 vote under then-chair Lina Khan, cited HIPAA coverage gaps for consumer health applications. The commission said the statement provided minimal benefit, was superseded by rulemaking, and aligns with the White House deregulatory agenda.
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Political opposites unite in Washington to rein in AI
Bipartisan figures including Sanders and Bannon urge AI limits as OpenAI backs the FRONTIER Act creating the first federal AI safety framework.
At the Future of Life Institute's Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon both called for tighter AI limits, an unusual bipartisan alignment. OpenAI told Politico it supports the FRONTIER Act introduced by Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan, which would create the first federal AI safety framework and require independent verification organizations for labs above high revenue and compute thresholds. Sanders proposed pausing data center construction, while Bannon favors a presidential executive order over legislation, and the White House opposes these measures.
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Lawmakers call on Treasury to sanction hackers-for-hire
Bipartisan US lawmakers asked Treasury to sanction three India-based hack-for-hire firms accused of long-running espionage against Americans.
Sens. Ron Wyden and Sheldon Whitehouse and Rep. Pat Harrigan urged Treasury to add Sunkissed Organic Farms (formerly Appin), BellTroX, and CyberRoot to the Entity List. The letter says the mercenary groups conducted targeted espionage against US citizens, businesses, and lawyers for over fifteen years, allegedly including work for Qatar's government such as targeting opponents of Qatar's World Cup bid and Kristi Rogers, wife of Senate candidate Mike Rogers. Adding the firms to the Entity List would restrict their access to American software, cybersecurity tools, and cloud infrastructure. The lawmakers also accuse the groups of lawfare campaigns to censor investigative reporting on their hacking activities.
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US seizes domains of Chinese botnet used to target NASA, Justice Department, and the Senate
US Justice Department seized domains of a Chinese botnet used to hack NASA, the Justice Department, and the Senate, disabling its C2.
The US Justice Department seized domains belonging to a Chinese botnet that was used to hack NASA, the Justice Department, and the Senate. The seized domains were hardcoded into the botnet's code, so the seizures rendered the botnet and its command-and-control servers inoperable. The action disrupted the malware's communication channels and essential operations.
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FTC Withdraws Obsolete Policy Statement
The FTC rescinded its 2021 policy statement that applied the Health Breach Notification Rule to health apps and connected devices collecting consumer health data.
The Federal Trade Commission formally rescinded its 2021 Policy Statement on Breaches by Health Apps and Other Connected Devices. The statement had purported to apply the FTC's Health Breach Notification Rule to health apps and connected devices that collect consumer health information. The Commission considers the statement obsolete following its 2024 update to the Health Breach Notification Rule.
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Who gets to define the rules for AI?
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez attacks big-lab antitrust exemption proposals as cartel behavior that lets incumbents write AI safety rules.
Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez argues that proposals from large AI labs—particularly Anthropic's roadmap requesting antitrust exemptions for safety coordination—amount to a cartel letting incumbents define rules for everyone else. He draws parallels to the 1975 SEC NRSRO credit-rating designations and the EU's 1985 Motor Vehicle Block Exemption, where safety justifications produced incumbent-protecting market structures. Gomez supports independent review of highly capable AI systems but disputes who writes the standards, who conducts review, and who participates. He also warns AI cyber offense is getting cheaper faster than defenses are improving.
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Supreme Court denies Trump request to allow USPS mail ballot changes
Supreme Court denied the Trump administration's emergency request to implement USPS mail ballot changes before the 2026 midterms, calling it arbitrary and capricious.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected 7-2 the Trump administration's petition to change how the U.S. Postal Service handles mail-in ballots for the 2026 midterm elections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote the administration was unlikely to succeed, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh cited unreasonably short timelines for state election officials. The blocked executive order would have required USPS citizenship verification, barcode tracking of ballot envelopes, and DHS-compiled "State Citizenship Lists"; a whistleblower alleged a rushed effort to install three restrictive IT verification systems. Justices Alito and Thomas dissented, arguing states and organizations lacked standing.
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The EU CRA's Real Question: What Shipped, and When Did You Know?
ActiveState argues the EU CRA's 24-hour ENISA exploit-notification duty, effective September 11, 2026, makes current SBOMs and provenance visibility a legal necessity.
An ActiveState essay warns that the EU Cyber Resilience Act's reporting obligations take effect on September 11, 2026, requiring manufacturers of products with digital elements sold into the EU to notify ENISA within 24 hours of learning a vulnerability is actively exploited, with a fuller report within 72 hours. The law's engineering requirements only apply from December 11, 2027, leaving a visibility-first runway, and Article 13 requires the SBOM to stay current unlike one-time artifacts generated under US Executive Order 14028. The author contrasts the 24-hour notification clock with an industry-average 55 days to remediate high or critical vulnerabilities and recommends automated SBOM regeneration or consuming pre-vetted, attested open source components.
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Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail
A whistleblower alleges USPS is rushing untested IT systems that could reject thousands of mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
A whistleblower complaint released by Sen. Richard Blumenthal says USPS is deploying three new, largely untested IT systems — including the Federal Ballot Mail Portal — that could reject entire ballot batches over single scan errors. The systems were developed in weeks without standard testing or interoperability checks, and USPS allegedly continued work despite court injunctions against its rule changes. House Oversight Democrats demanded USPS halt implementation, and election experts warn the design could lead to new lawsuits and mass ballot denials.
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Confused about which VPN is right, US senator asks the NSA for guidance
Senator Ron Wyden asked the NSA to update public guidance on VPN configurations, questioning single-hop designs and services like Tor.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) sent a letter Wednesday to NSA director Gen. Joshua Rudd requesting updated public guidance on VPN best practices for Americans facing advanced foreign threats, including government personnel, contractors, and journalists. The letter highlights limitations such as decrypted traffic at single-hop termination servers, metadata like timestamps enabling nation-state profiling, and asks the NSA to assess multi-hop architectures, random delays, cryptographic padding, and specific services including Apple Private Relay, Nym, and Tor.
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The FTC wants to regulate AI for ideological bias
FTC proposes classifying ideological bias in AI systems as an unfair or deceptive practice, drawing criticism over legal authority and censorship risks.
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson's proposed policy statement would treat ideological bias in AI systems as an unfair or deceptive practice under Section 5 of the FTC Act, potentially allowing regulation of the training and inputs powering AI algorithms. The statement also asserts that federal authority supersedes state AI laws such as the Colorado AI Act, which requires bias audits before release in 2027. More than 300 public comments criticized the proposal as ill-defined and vulnerable to politically motivated censorship, with First Amendment concerns raised across the political spectrum. Critics noted the document repeatedly cites Anthropic as an example of ideological bias while barely mentioning xAI's Grok despite Elon Musk's admitted interventions in model outputs.
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FBI Disrupts Chinese Proxy Tools Used in Mass Hacking of US Agencies and Infrastructure
FBI disrupted Chinese state-linked proxy infrastructure used in hacking campaigns against NASA, the Federal Reserve, the US Senate, and other US targets.
The FBI disrupted Chinese proxy tools used in a mass hacking campaign against US agencies and critical infrastructure, according to the DOJ. Targets included NASA, the Federal Reserve, the US Senate, and the Justice Department. The operation dismantled infrastructure that Chinese state-sponsored hackers relied on to obfuscate their access.
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White House Launches Pilot Program in Texas to Protect Water Infrastructure
White House launches Project Watershed 250, giving Texas water providers federal and private-sector cybersecurity resources amid rising nation-state threats to critical infrastructure.
The White House launched Project Watershed 250, a pilot program providing water providers in Texas with federal and private-sector cybersecurity resources. The initiative comes amid rising nation-state threats targeting water utilities and other critical infrastructure in the United States.
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